Page 89 - Studio International - May June 1975

way its collaged planes came to
approximate an imagist effect. In
contrast, the painting hung at the
farthest end of the gallery,
though rich and generous in
surface treatment, seemed
gratuitously so. Walker's art is at
its best when the surface seems to
be something responsive: not
merely composed or filled with
incident (as in the case of this
painting) but breathing and
pulsating, and unencumbered
enough to be so. The third
painting in the exhibition came
closest to achieving this eager,
positive effect. It appeared at
first the most eccentric: a pile of
collaged forms reaching up the
right-hand side, and poking
diagonally downwards across the
upper surface. The image thus
created was reminiscent in a way
of Duchamp-Villon's Horse.
I venture to suggest that Walker's
art requires an emotional focus
such as this kind of imagist shape
affords (however eccentric it may
be, or however many different
planes comprise it). Here, not only
did the planes gell to create such a
powerfully obtrusive image, but
in doing so they left enough of the
remainder of the surface open,
allowing the fine whitened -
almost stuccoed - surface to show
itself: like a very thin skin
stretched tight across the painting.
Walker has always had
something of Hofmann about
him : not only in his use of
strongly impastoed forms and in
his generally muscular style but
also in his inventiveness, and, of
late, in his tutelage of his
inventiveness as well. If here he
loses something for it, then
equally there is enough in these
paintings to remind one of the
high standards - not merely of
invention but of quality - which
Walker has, by his own example,
set up for himself to sustain.
Three years older than Walker,
Frank Bowling has worked in a
John Walker Juggernaut V 1974. Acrylic on canvas 10 x 8 ft. variety of different styles without
quite settling in any of them and
without quite managing to make
without ever quite separating constantly inventive one, that many of them suffer from it. any his own. However, a group of
themselves from the grounds as unwilling to stay long with any In the back room at Greenwood's
blocks or shapes of colour: one format even though it was were some recent drawings. They
images without mass. still producing work of very are all far more immediate and
In this respect, there could be no considerable quality. He has kept direct than all but one of the
clearer contrast than with John changing his art and thus three Juggernaut paintings
Walker's paintings. The shapes renewing its vigour. His new exhibited. Compared to the
Walker uses have always had paintings are no less vigorous or drawings, the paintings seem
mass - have always been strong, muscular than they were before. unduly complicated. In part, this
dramatic and individually Indeed, they are probably more so. is a result of Walker's adoption
charged. But in his very use of And yet I cannot but find them of draughtsmanlike effects in the
clearly defined shapes Walker is as more limited. I say this despite paintings; but is mainly a loss in
much a tonal painter as is the new drama they possess and openness. He seems to be taking
Goodnough, and, like him, works despite the new 'natural' look side glances at Al Held and de
best when fixing his shapes that informs the interlocking Kooning. His paintings are no
against an open painterly ground. collaged planes and chalk strewn longer of presented images but of
An art such as this seems to surfaces. In fact, I am tempted to overlapping and jigsawed planes
demand openness: not only to say that it is because of these new which tighten and compress the
give breathing room to the shapes qualities that they are limited on surface, despite their considerable
themselves but to keep the other counts. Since 1970-72, size. This loses that remarkable
surfaces flatly stretched and which I take to have been balance of charged shape and
somehow unviolated by the Walker's most successful period expansive surface which
shapes they contain. of painting to date, he has made characterizes his best work. One
I say this by way of introducing some large chalk wall-drawings painting, with predominantly
some reservations I have about and a great number of smaller horizontal accents, was at first
Walker's most recent, Juggernaut, drawings and prints. The sight most successful in format, in
series of paintings, three of which Juggernaut series follow these. extending Walker's concern with
were seen recently at Nigel Perhaps the paintings were floating heavy forms across the
Greenwood's gallery. Walker has motivated by the desire to lower reaches of the picture
long shown himself to be not achieve something more surface. It benefited from its Frank Bowling Jason on Lemnos
only an important painter but a monumental. If so, then I believe relative simplicity, and from the Acrylic on canvas 74 x 36 in.
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